Trump went on to say that uniting people would also be hard because of issues like health care, because some people want “free health care paid by the government” and others want “health care paid by private, where there’s great competition.”

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Quote from: Swift

i don't know if i'll ever forgive you for how you treated turtleman

Every time I speak of the haters and losers I do so with great love and affection. They cannot help the fact that they were born fucked up!

Trump went on to say that uniting people would also be hard because of issues like health care, because some people want “free health care paid by the government” and others want “health care paid by private, where there’s great competition.”

Yeah good point Don, when you're recovering in hospital nothing makes you feel better than a life-crippling bill

I hope there's like 10K choreographed goosestepping soldiers, with missiles on flatbeds, and a flyover by jets blowing red, white and blue smoke while kim-dong-trump salutes wearing dark sunglasses, a costume-shop captian's hat and his old boy-scout uniform

California police investigating a violent white nationalist event worked with white supremacists in an effort to identify counter-protesters and sought the prosecution of activists with “anti-racist” beliefs, court documents show.

The records, which also showed officers expressing sympathy with white supremacists and trying to protect a neo-Nazi organizer’s identity, were included in a court briefing from three anti-fascist activists who were charged with felonies after protesting at a Sacramento rally. The defendants were urging a judge to dismiss their case and accused California police and prosecutors of a “cover-up and collusion with the fascists”.

Officers also worked with TWP member Derik Punneo to try to identify anti-fascist activists, recordings revealed. Officers interviewed Punneo in jail after he was arrested for an unrelated domestic violence charge. Audio recordings captured investigators saying they brought photos to show him, hoping he could help them identify anti-fascist activists.

The officers said, “We’re pretty much going after them,” and assured him: “We’re looking at you as a victim.”

Ayres’s report noted that Punneo was armed with a knife at the neo-Nazi rally and that one stabbing victim told officers he believed Punneo was responsible. Using video footage, Ayres also noted that Punneo was “in the vicinity” of another victim at the time he was injured, but the officer said the evidence ultimately wasn’t clear.

In 1992, Oklahoma passed a ballot initiative saying that the state could only raise taxes with a three quarters majority in the state assembly, creating a one-way ratchet where every tax cut becomes effectively permanent, including the sweetheart deals cut for frackers and the deep cuts to taxes on the wealthiest residents of the state.

As a result, the state is going broke. Teachers haven't gotten a raise in 10 years and the only way they can afford to accept the pay -- third-worst in the nation -- is by negotiating a four-day school week in 90 districts, freeing teachers up to take jobs at Walmart on Mondays to make ends meet.

Teachers are fleeing the state in droves, including the Teacher of the Year, who quit his job in 2016 shortly after receiving his award, taking a better-paid teaching job in a neighboring state (the Dallas school system actively recruits Oklahoma teachers with Oklahoma City hiring booths).

Teachers are especially hard hit: their health plan was replaced with a private system that eats up more than $1000/month for a family of three -- one teaching aide was actually paying to work her job, spending $200/month more on health insurance than she was paid in salary. Teachers make ends meet with public housing vouchers and food stamps, and school food-bank drives sometimes give their leftovers to hungry teachers and their families.

It's not just teachers: the highway patrol has been given orders not to completely fill their gas-tanks at the pump, to help with state cash-flow; drunk drivers go free because there is no one available to process their tickets, and the prison system is on the verge of collapse.

No fact embarrasses Oklahomans more, or repels prospective businesses more, than the number of cash-strapped districts that have gone to four-day weeks. Yet even such a radical change may not help finances much. Paul Hill, a professor of education at the University of Washington, Bothell, estimates that the savings are “in the 1 or 2% range at most”. That sliver is still important to Kent Holbrook, superintendent of public schools in Inola (the self-styled “Hay Capital of the World”). “In my mind, that’s five or six teachers,” says Mr Holbrook. Already, from 2008 to 2016, he has lost 11 teachers from a corps that once numbered 100. He has also had to reduce Spanish classes and, for the tenth year running, delay buying new textbooks.

the entire state is collapsing but at least the rich dont have to pay much in taxes and oil companies only a meager 1%!

good god, the vultures still arent satisfied

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Ms Fallin, the state governor, has called for a $5,000 pay rise for teachers and has endorsed some modest tax increases ahead of the next legislative session. Whether she can muster enough support to cross the three-quarters threshold the state constitution requires for a tax increase is unclear; recent attempts have fallen just short. Meanwhile some Republicans, intent on cutting more spending, have an eye on the state’s Medicaid programme.